UPCOMING EVENTS

Smartwatch maker Pebble today announced a new Dictation API (application programming interface) that will give voice recognition capabilities to third-party apps for Pebble watches connected to iOS or Android devices.

Rather than develop its own voice recognition technology like Google and Apple, which have their own smartwatches, Pebble has packaged up technology from Nuance Communications.

“From keeping in touch hands-free to controlling smart homes and connected cars, the possibilities are endless. We’re excited to see what developers build with this sweet new tool,” Pebble community manager Joseph Kristoffer wrote in a blog post on the news.

If you own a smartwatch or even if you’ve tried one on, you know that speech is a useful interface for a device with such a small screen. So it’s quite reasonable for Pebble to introduce this API, even if the company didn’t go so far as to make it a first-party feature of Pebble watches.